


when i'm returning from so far away

by spacenarwhal



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28061208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: “How was Utapau?” Jyn asks, toeing off her thick socks, her toes pale and wrinkled from days of walking and running and then knocking around the Falcon. She doesn’t bother standing to remove her trousers, unfastens them and wiggles them down her hips, kicks them free of her legs.  There are bruises scattered over her shins, her knees, one blooming yellow and green on her thigh. She doesn’t even remember getting that one.“Classified.” Cassian answers bluntly.[Or: An unexpected reunion between Cassian and Jyn between missions.]
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 8
Kudos: 113





	when i'm returning from so far away

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Crazy Love by Aaron Neville and covered by a whole bunch of people.

“Well, this beats an imperial prison.” Jyn says drily, looking around the small room they’ve been assigned to. All around them the ship vibrates, that hum of life support systems and the artificial gravity generators at work in time with the engines that all ships have that Jyn has never learned to ignore. She doesn’t know what faith Cassian and Bodhi have in the machines that shuttle them between worlds, she’s never successfully shaken the gut-clenching fear that comes from placing her entire survival on thin plates of metal and luck. 

There’s nothing for it now, however, not if Jyn means to stay on. And she does, a promise she’s made to herself if to no one else aloud. There's no running now, Jyn's choice made and remade every single day since Scarif. She has good reason to. 

Jyn shifts on the balls of her feet, cocks her hip slightly to the right to catch sight of Cassian behind her, studying the layout of the room with his careful eyes. Jyn turns her shoulder forward again, the movement small enough she doesn’t think he should notice, except of course he does. He’s annoying like that. 

Jyn takes in the room properly, the narrow shelf that’s to act as bed, room for storage beneath, simple bedding that was doubtlessly salvaged from whatever past life this ship used to have before it was repurposed as a war vessel. There’s an identical narrow bed affixed to the wall opposite the first, the same set up. There’s tiny sink jutting out of the wall perpendicular to the beds, enough of a ledge over it to act as a shelf, a single chair. There’s a spark of curiosity in Jyn’s belly. Who kept this room before them, what sort of lives did they lead? Were they soldiers too? Or just passengers seeking to go elsewhere? Workers scratching out their living? Jyn moves towards the bed set into the same wall as the entryway, knows its not immediately visible when coming in and affords just a second’s more coverage in case of attack. 

Further inspection will have to wait, Jyn decides, too tired already from a long day of traveling abroad that rustbucket Solo preens over, trying to avoid Solo’s endless attempts at small talk after the abysmal conclusion to their supply pick up, chased off planet by a wannabe bounty hunter looking to cash in the Hutt's offer. For a man who used to make a living in secrecy and smuggled goods, Han Solo talks too much for his own good.

Cassian looks just as weary, face wane and shoulders tight, but then he only arrived hours before her, went through his entire debriefing process before he was escorted to a room. They bumped into each other in the lift here, their battered packs slung over their shoulders, caught off guard by the sight of the other. It's been weeks since the last time they saw one another, and then only in passing, Jyn arriving as Cassian was readying to depart. 

(Bodhi, Baze, and Chirrut are still somewhere out there, doing their own part, and Jyn does her best to ignore the fist clenched tight around her heart whenever she thinks of how much she hates this, this constant separation they endure for such brief periods together. It isn’t enough, but its more than nothing and Jyn knows all about living off scraps.)

Cassian follows suit, pack lowered to the floor by Jyn’s feet. Neither of them is likely to unpack, too accustomed to being deployed again quickly, but for now it’s enough to sit on the hard edge of the bed, to undo the laces of her heavy boots. She kicks them off with twinned thumps, closes her eyes for a second and just sits there, head bent forward. Her neck aches, her hair bound too tightly for too long, a pinch radiating over her scalp and throbbing at her temples. 

“Lift up.” Cassian says gently, and kriffing hell, Jyn nearly snorts when she realizes she’s left her jacket on. She lifts her arms sluggishly, lets Cassian slide the sleeve from one arm and then the other, knows he’ll find a decent place to hang it. She lifts her head and sure enough he’s draped her jacket and his over the chair. She grins. 

“How was Utapau?” Jyn asks, toeing off her thick socks, her toes pale and wrinkled from days of walking and running and knocking around the Falcon. She doesn’t bother standing to remove her trousers, unfastens them and wiggles them down her hips, kicks them free of her legs. There are bruises scattered over her shins, her knees, one blooming on yellow and green on her thigh. She doesn’t even remember getting that one. 

“Classified.” Cassian answers, voice slightly muffled. When she looks up Cassian is shedding his own clothes, barefoot, arms raised over his own head as he pulls his shirt off. Jyn checks him for visible injuries, but there’s just the curve of his ribs, the scattered trail of dark hair low on his belly. They’ve both grown up soldiers, neither of them shy about standing near naked to one another, so Jyn doesn’t pretend to look elsewhere when Cassian’s finally emerges from his shirt, hair ruffled and standing on end at the back. 

Jyn sticks out the tip of her tongue. “Who am I going to tell? The Wookie?” 

Cassian sniggers at that, and Jyn goes back to dealing with her own dirty clothes, strips down to her small clothes and frees her hair before clawing the blanket free and slipping under it. She could do with a shower first, she's sure, but it'll have to wait, the idea of sleeping more alluring than Jyn can resist. The hair on her legs rubs against the blankets as she pulls the blankets upward, little static bursts over her skin. She knows the room will probably be freezing as soon as she’s fully settled but for now there’s still that faint stuffiness to the air, left over from being shut up too long. In all honesty, Jyn simply wants to make the most of the privacy afforded here, for a little while at least, let her guard down as much as she ever can. 

“You ever play sabaac with him? He’s a talker.” Cassian counters, setting his own clothes down on the bed opposite Jyn. He bends down and picks up the wadded mess of Jyn’s own discarded trousers. Jyn rolls her eyes at him, but Cassian only grins in response, unbothered as he picks up the rest of Jyn’s scattered clothes. 

There’s something novel to it still, makes something warm unfurl in Jyn’s chest as she watches him shake out and lay smooth her clothes, as though wrinkles bothered either of them. She studies the expanse of Cassian’s back when its turned towards her, counts the moles speckled over his lower back, the surgical scars left over along the length of his spine. The medics warned him after Yavin that they can manage the pain of the injury for now, but the harder he pushes himself the faster he’ll wear himself down. Jyn hasn’t seen it slow Cassian at all, thinks of those times--far and few between--when they’ve been sent on missions together and how he’s carried himself as fiercely as he did on Jedha, on Eadu, on Scarif. She knows he’s determined to make the most of whatever time he has. 

Satisfied with his attempts at tidying, Cassian turns back towards her, and Jyn takes him in, from his rumpled hair to his solid shoulders, the breadth of his chest. Jyn doesn’t smile at him, just shuffles backwards on her side, the metal wall pressing cold against her back through the thin blanket. 

These beds weren’t built for two (Jyn isn’t entirely sure they were built of one, thinks they might have just been benches once), but they are nothing if not used to making due with uncomfortable lodgings. They slept sitting up and half-slumped against each other in warehouses and stretched out on the floors of shuttles and in single-person cots in medbays in the wake of Scarif when either of them trusted the other not to disappear if they moved away. 

Cassian slips beneath the blanket, stretches out along the edge of the bed with a sigh, his bare skin cool where it touches hers. When they first did this, he’d keep his back to her and she’d fold her arms between them, forearms resting against his back, fingers curled intot the loose collar of his shirt, a safe kind of touch. Now he presses close, head tucked under Jyn’s chin, long arm curled around her. Jyn drapes her leg over him, her own arm coming up over his shoulders pulling the blanket into place. She feels his exhale as much as she hears his sigh, her arm rising as his chest expands and lifts his back. Jyn drops a quick kiss to his dark hair, eyes closing again, sinking comfortably into the messy tangle of their bodies. 

She misses this every single time they’re apart. It had scared her at first, how even the thought of them apart made her ache, those last hectic moments on Scarif playing endlessly in her head, Cassian’s hand pressing hers into the warm sand, his body sagging against hers, the only thing keeping him upright once their mission was completed.

It still scares Jyn now, though it's gone on long enough that she’s passed chastising herself for it. There is so very little either of them have had, so little Jyn can offer him or keep for herself, what shame is there in wanting this, loving this. None Jyn thinks to herself, holding him just a fraction closer. 

Cassian presses a kiss to Jyn’s throat, going heavy against her. Jyn’s throat aches as though it’s gone dry, her stomach heavy with a kind of longing she hasn’t put a name to. Like her insides are bloated, her heart swollen, hot and pulsing as an open wound. She licks at her lips, relaxes her jaw. Her breath clicks in her throat and she can feel Cassian stirring in her arms, rousing from the edge of sleep. He starts to pull away but Jyn makes a short noise, feels him go still again if not quite so relaxed as before. 

“Jyn?” He asks, and Jyn’s eyes flood hot, still marveling at how he can make her name contain galaxies in a single breath. It isn't fear. Jyn's known fear all her life, like anger and loneliess and regret. Jyn's heart trembles, and she feels close to bursting, breathes in sharply and holds it in her chest for a long second. She wants to have this always, wants to hold him, keep him. She can't picture a future, but she can see Cassian always, safely held in her mind's eye. His dark eyes and half-smile, his long, thin fingers, the bend of his elbows and the funny hollows behind his knees, all the secret parts of him she's learned in the days and weeks and months since they were saved from that blazing beach. 

“I love you.” She says, half-incredulous to hear the words come from her mouth. Kriff. All this time trying to unravel the knotted threads of this enigma she’s carried in her body, the impossible unknowable thing finally named and Jyn somehow as mystified by it as she is dumbstruck by how simple the answer really is. She feels the knotted thing give way now, staticy heat buzzing through her limbs. 

She can’t remember the last time she’s said those words. She’s loved, of course, against all attempts and better judgement. She loved Lyra and Galen, loved Saw Gerrera with the same child's devotion. She loves Baze and Chirrut and Bohdi now, her family in every way but blood, just as she loves Cassian and yet still somehow different in its own way. Not better or worse, just different, a creature all its own for Jyn to discover. 

Whatever compulsion moved her to speak pounds weakly in her throat now, and Jyn feels her muscles go slack, her arm still holding Cassian close, skin going warm along the length of her body. 

Cassian exhales, and when he lifts himself this time Jyn lets him go, wants to see his face plainly. He doesn't look any different from before and there's comfort in that at least. 

“Jyn,” he says, one hand touching her face, his warm rough thumb sweeping over her cheek. “I love you, too.” 

Jyn bites the inside of her cheek, slides her sweaty fingers into his unclean hair. “You don’t have to.” She whispers, because its true--because she knows, has known for longer than she can count that he does, that she matters to him, and now she just needs him to know the reverse is true too, because what if he doesn't, she knows she doesn't have any kind of capability with words and limited with physical affection--but Cassian just smiles, eyes so stupidly kind Jyn feels her whole face flush. 

“I don’t think you understand,” Cassian answers, ducking his head, forehead bumping against hers, “how much I do.” 

Jyn tries to bite down a grin but it's no use, smiles wide and reckless, hides her face against his jaw until it feels less like her face might crack in two.

“I missed you on Utapau.” Cassian says, as reverent as any confession Jyn’s ever heard, and she nods, face still tucked against his. 

They drift off somewhere between one kiss and the next, Jyn’s fingers still clutching at Cassian’s hair, his leg slotted between hers. Jyn wakes up hours later, belly protesting with hunger, overly warm, partially pinned under Cassian’s weight, his body draped over her like a living, breathing blanket. She’ll wiggle out soon if hunger doesn’t wake him too, do her best not to wake him as she extracts herself from the bedding. 

But her hunger will keep for a while longer, so Jyn lies there just a moment longer, commits every part she can to memory. It’ll be all she can keep when they’re apart. 


End file.
